Taking time to worship the Creator who cares for me

This is the front of today's church bulletin.

Owing to work and sickness, I had not been to a church service for about a month until this morning. I had been to Sunday School for a couple of sessions, but I had to leave afterwards and did not attend worship service.

It was good to be at both Sunday School and the worship service today. Those are the best times of the week. I enjoy Sunday School immensely. There were 10 old men in the little classrom today. There are so many of us good ole boys that they are going to take down a wall and extend the classroom to give us some room.

The appeal of the Sunday School class is that we all talk freely. We give our own interpretation of the lesson, and while we may disagree, no one judges and no one gets angry. We laugh a lot in that class.

We are a small country congregation. About 50 of us attend the worship service each Sunday. We have a traditional service with singing of the good old hymns from the hymnal, accompanied by a piano player and an organist. Today, we sang the third verse of "Worthy of Worship" as the call to worship. We also sang "Trust Try and Prove Me," "Take the Name of Jesus With You" and "Wherever He Leads I'll Go."

In between the songs were the welcome to visitors, announcements, a brief presentation on the Christianity of the nation's Founding Fathers," praises and prayer concerns followed by our morning prayer, the children's sermon, the offering, a special vocal from one of the women of the church and the sermon.

The preacher preached about the prodigal son and his father, based on Luke 15. I tell you honestly that I did not listen carefully. That happens a lot to me. I have three jobs counting this one, so I have a full schedule. I should read the Bible studiously each day, but I don't have or make the time. I look forward to worship services so I can sit an meditate on God. Sunday mornings, I listen to the sermon a little and then my mind wanders toward God.

Today, I sat and wrote a little prayer while the preacher preached. Sometimes, just thinking about God and talking to him in my thoughts makes me feel better than a sermon does.

After the sermon, we had the Lord's Supper observance. We don't do that at every service; we have the Lord's Supper quarterly. It is always a moving experience for me to partake in the bread and grape juice as symbols of our Lord's body and blood.

I have heard lots of reasons for not going to church, and I think they are all good reason. I am not judgingyou for not going to church; that is between you and Jesus, who will someday judge you himself. If any of you reading this are compelled as I am to regularly join other sinners in worshipping the Savior, I recommend you find a good little country church.